Thursday, June 7, 2012

Not AWOL but Depressed

Sorry for the lack of recent posts. I’ve had various other things going on that have occupied my time and kept me from blogging. But if truth be told, I will say that I’m a bit depressed, too. You see, as I read about what’s going on in the world of politics and as the election campaign begins to take shape, I realize more and more that rationale discourse, dialogue, debate, and discussion are worth very little, if anything. Rather, all that really matters is the ability to spend outrageous sums of money. And even that wouldn’t be so bad if the money was spent in a way that actually educated voters. But far too much of the expenditures are used, at best, to do nothing more than attack a candidate and, at worst, are replete with outright lies.

And, I’d note, it seems more and more that the media seems almost complicit in allowing candidates, their surrogates, and their Super PACs lie with impunity or, in the rare cases where a lie is noted, it is contextualized with a “both sides do it” framework but without any concept of scope, scale, or meaning, or impact.

What is the point of trying to write about the issues, to point out factual inaccuracies or hypocrisy, or to explain reasoning for a position, when a handful of billionaires can anonymously spend unlimited amounts of money to drown out any sort of reasoned discussion? And when they have their own “news” network devoted to their cause…?

There have been a bunch of things that I’ve wanted to write about recently but I keep having this sinking feeling that it’s just not worth my time. Those who I really want to try to convince seem almost immune from facts, reason, or logic; if they heard it on Faux News or Limbaugh’s program (or Glenn Beck or Laura Ingraham or any of a bunch of other shows) then it must be true and nothing that I or anyone else (who actually thinks that facts matter) does seems to make any kind of dent.

Don’t worry. I’m not giving up. I’m just venting and maybe catching my breath. Because I’m sure that as the election draws nearer and the lies begin to fly even thicker and uglier then I’ll have plenty to say. And even if I’m feeling a bit (well, more than a bit) powerless in the face of millions of dollars spent to lie to people, I still recognize that our democracy is premised upon people expressing their opinions, something I’m clearly not shy about doing.

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